


Everything I Feel Returns to You Somehow

by reciprocityfic (orphan_account)



Category: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF, Maksyl - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Maksyl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/reciprocityfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maks and Meryl spend a May night rehearsing for Sway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything I Feel Returns to You Somehow

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened?”

They sit at the edge of an empty practice at his Sherman Oaks studio, long abandoned by anyone but them, as it is just past midnight in sticky, mid-May LA. But they had get as much practice in for Sway as they could while they both had mutual free time, a rarity in their busy schedules. They had been dancing for hours.  They decided to take a short break before running through their paso a few more times and then calling it a night.  She sits down next to her bag and takes a drink from her water bottle, picking up her phone and flipping through it mindlessly. His question almost startles her.  He had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire practice.

“What?” she murmurs, refreshing her Twitter feed once more before putting down her phone and turning to him, offering a small smile.  Their eyes meet briefly, and he gives her half of one in return, before dropping his gaze to his hands.

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened?” he repeats.  “If we had…”

He trails off, bringing one of his hands to rest on her knee, his index and middle finger beginning to knead small circles into her skin.

“If we had what?” she prompts, letting one of her hands wander to the arm extended to her, letting her fingers travel over his bicep in a slow, gentle circuit.

He’s quiet for a few moments, as if contemplating his next words.  He clears his throat lowly, and whispers.

“If we had loved each other the way everyone wanted us to.”

Her hand on his arm freezes, and the loudest silence either of them had ever heard fills the room.

“Princess?” he murmurs, staring at his fingers on her leg, afraid to look at her.

She doesn’t answer him.

*             *             *

This is what she doesn’t say.

She doesn’t say that she  _does_ , more than he could ever imagine, more than is healthy, more than is appropriate, considering both of them are in relationships now.  She doesn’t say that every night as she falls asleep, she promises herself that  _this_  has been the last day that she thought of him that way, the last day that she even thought about him as much as she did. Because things are different now, she has someone new now, and she thinks of him too much.  Because they weren’t like that, that’s not how they were. He was her best friend, he was her  _person_ , but he wasn’t  _that_.

And tomorrow, she will not think of him that way.

And when tomorrow comes, she doesn’t say that without fail, she  _always_ thinks of him that way.

And she wonders.

*             *             *

One of her soft, unsteady breaths breaks her absolute quiet, gives him the courage to turn and look at her.

To see her, mouth open slightly, eyes shining with tears, staring at him like he is something dangerous, almost.

He stares in shock at her expression for a moment, before she inhales and some of the liquid in her eyes spills over, and she begins to cry, just slightly.

His face crumples immediately.  His entire world falls apart, seeing her upset.  Knowing that it’s his fault.

Immediately he reaches up and gingerly wipes some of the moisture from her cheeks with his thumbs, before gathering her onto his lap and into his arms. He cradles her against his chest, and she wraps her fingers around the strap of his white tank top. He presses his lips into her hair, closes his eyes, rocks them back and forth gently.

He acts almost on instinct the entire time, because this is what he  _does_.  He supports her, protects her, comforts her when her incredible, awe-inspiring strength falters and she needs someone. When she needs someone, he is there.  When she falls, he will catch her because that is what  _he does_.

“Meryl,” he murmurs into her hair.  “Meryl, I’m sorry.”

Her grip on his shirt tightens.

“Meryl, I’m…”

His voice breaks, and he feels his chest tighten, pressure push from behind his eyes.

“Oh,  _baby_ ,” he whispers, holding her tighter.

*             *             *

This is what he doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say that if he were being honest, he’d say that he  _didn’t_  wonder, really.  He didn’t think about her  _that_ much, and he liked to lie to himself and pretend he is over it, that it is in the past and he is moving on.

He doesn’t say that instead, he dreams.

He doesn’t say that he’s dreamed about her nearly every night since the middle of last March, just a few weeks after they met.  And it’s not that he simply dreams of her, of being with her, and spending time with her. He dreams of  _loving_  her, of  _living_ with her.  He dreams of weddings and children and growing old.  He dreams of forever, with her, devoted wholly and only to her.  He’s lived entire lives with her in dreams, over and over and over again.

He doesn’t say that, even though he knows it is wrong, he wants to keep the dreams for the rest of his life.

*             *             *

“Don’t cry,” he pleads, as his own tears rise and spill over, falling down his face and into her hair. “Don’t cry, baby.  Please.  I didn’t mean to make you sad.  I didn’t…it was a fucking stupid question.  I shouldn’t have asked.  I just…please don’t cry, Meryl.  I hate it when you cry.  I’m such a fucking idiot.  Please don’t cry.”

She takes a deep breath in his embrace, and then pulls back, finding his eyes.  They stare at each other for a few beats, all red eyes and tear-stained skin.  And then she smiles.  And seeing her smile makes his whole  _soul_  smile, so his lips turn up in return.

“I think we’re both fucking idiots, personally.”

They laugh.  

They wipe their eyes, and they laugh, and she falls back into his arms, relaxed.  And because they are laughing, and they are here – together – in this moment, everything is okay.

“We should paso,” she remarks, turning her face into his chest once more, before hopping up.

“And paso we shall,” he says, rising.

They grin at each other, and link their pinkies together as they move to the middle of the floor.

And in this moment, everything is okay.

*             *             *

This is what they don’t say.

This is what they both know, but pretend that they don’t.

_“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened?  If we had loved each other the way everyone wanted us to?”_

They don’t say that they  _did_  love that way. They  _did_ , in a way purer and deeper and truer than anyone could’ve imagined.

They don’t say that they were too scared to tell each other.

*             *             *

They don’t say that they still do.

**Author's Note:**

> Love and thanks to you all, xo.


End file.
